the seasons have changed & so have we
by godkillers
Summary: And somewhere deep in the dark, a howling beast hears us talk.


_*&amp;. _**_n_otes **— it just hit me how embarrassed i am to even be posting this, but i've wanted to write something like this for a long time, though i don't think i ever expected it to get nearly this dark. try not to take it too seriously — this is more my painfully morbid psyche and pathetic obsession with fucking everyone over than it is an actual reliable character exploration, so please just take this with a grain of salt. i pray that it's...decent, or interesting, or _something_, if not entirely enjoyable.

_*&amp;. _**_t_riggers **— violence, death, gore, implied depression, domestic abuse, suicide &amp; mental illness.

* * *

_*** (**_ _t_he seasons have changed &amp; so have we **_!_**

there's water up to my knees, but sharks are swimming in the sea/ just follow my  
yellow light and ignore those big warning signs — _yellow light_, of monsters &amp; men

* * *

the **_( _**L_IONHEART _**_)_** —  
one who is admired for their courage or noble qualities.

his childhood is what some would refer to as tragic, and the gap of time where he straddles the line between child and adult is even moreso. not tragic in the traditional sense like his childhood, youth spent tormented and abandoned and bruised to the bone with a hazy memory for a mother and a tyrant for a father, bells constantly shrieking in his ears to the tune of _not good enough, never good enough._

not now, though. now, it's like he's almost _too_ good, hoisted above the heads of his people like a blemished trophy resting upon pedestals of human limbs. it's a strange feeling, walking into the dining hall only to have half of its occupants offer him their seats while the other half simply stare, eyes bulging with jaws slack, whispers of _that's him, he's the one who saved us, the boy who tamed the night fury and dances with death for the thrill of it _rising up from every which way and gathering at the height of the vaulted ceiling, curling up there like smoke or clouds waiting patiently to empty their bellies, heavy with rainwater, onto the ground again.

hiccup thinks he might like this even less; it's nice at first, the outpouring of love and encouraging smiles from his father, claps on the back from strangers who mutter_ good on you, boy_ while he's out walking. he even learns to mostly ignore the way their eyes linger a little too long on his prosthetic, gazes shifting to where his foot used to be as their smiles falter, setting their mouths in straight, hard lines before they hustle away quickly.

as much as he has always craved acceptance, hiccup has never asked for pity. it makes his skin crawl, makes him feel like his spine is composed of squirming, writing snakes ready to plunge venom into his organs. he does not want this.

he has everything he's ever wished for and then some, and he learns a little too late that it's too _much_, because things aren't supposed to carry this kind of weight. it feels like there's always more of him than there actually is, like he's stuck carrying around an extra skeleton inside this skin or on his back. the world looks different now than it did before toothless; it's a kaleidoscope of colors as opposed to the dull grey that matched the twisting and turning of his insides, fear of never living up to his father's expectations except now everything moves and changes too fast and he doesn't know how to make it stop. he sees the world through rose-colored goggles in the beginning, looking down at tiny ant-sized people from his favorite position in the sky, hovering just below the clouds, close enough to swipe his hands through them but lately those instances are becoming few and far between.

lately, his life has been nothing but lectures from his father about the responsibilities he has and the ones he'll be burdened with when he's chief — after all, in his eyes his father is a god but even the mightiest face death eventually — jabbering in his ear, congratulations and pats on the back and his own voice gone hoarse from telling the same story of how he befriended the most murderous of creatures over and over again before crowds of adults and wide-eyed, slack-jawed children alike; he talks and smiles and comforts his people until his throat feels like it's bleeding and sometimes he closes his eyes and thinks _this is what the world looks like when everybody wants a piece of you. _

everyone wants to be saved, after all, and hiccup is the only savior.

* * *

the **_( _**S_OVEREIGN **)**_ —  
one with supreme power, rank, or authority.

he's cold, not in physicality as it's rumored that his blood is simply a flood of lava, a volcano waiting to erupt and bury the village in ash, but in spirit, in demeanor, in looks of disappointment or raw fury, ice melting away to make way for the most scorching flames berk has ever seen, fueled by an overwhelming sense of rage and the strongest desire to protect his people.

he is both everything and nothing. he is the life of the parties, encompassing a warmth that glows, crinkled eyes and a hearty laugh that fills even the darkest corners of any room. he is a tyrant, a ruthless leader who can silence an entire village of savages just like him in a second. he is brave. loyal. treacherous. upstanding. selfish. hot-blooded. honest. deceitful. a force to be reckoned with, like the waves that break against the slatted sides of their wooden boats and the flames that the scaled beasts spit at their homes, rolling off their forked tongues and setting their island ablaze, curling sparks throwing themselves at the darkened sky like they're trying to kiss the clouds.

it is with a heavy heart and the tremendous burden of shame that he brings his son into the world — born a runt, sickly and skin discolored an awful purplish color that can only mean death and _soon_, stoick knows the boy doesn't stand a chance. it is to his and the enter village's surprise when not only the boy survives another week but makes it to his first birthday, and then second, and before he can blink hiccup is twelve and too skinny, green eyes too big for his face like a ridiculous deer. he can't wield swords or spears and spends too much time up in his room, skinny form hunched over his desk, fingers always working away, tracing unfamiliar shapes onto every inch of parchment scraps.

stoick hates it, the apologetic, rueful looks they give him because his son is stumbling around, hunting barefoot for trolls with a twig in hand while the others learn to sharpen spears and put out fires and identify sixty kinds of dragons, hungry eyes begging for more, tiny tongues running over pointy teeth in anticipation of killing their first dragon. hiccup is not violent, or even particularly determined, perfectly content with lounging about, scurrying around in the forest behind their cottage for hours on end and coming home with twigs in his hair and face smeared with dirt, pockets loaded down with rocks, none of which stoick finds particularly special but hiccup treats every one like it's a treasure.

he thinks — no, he _knows_ he was never meant to raise a son alone. his wife was the natural, full of poise and comforting words and kind smiles, the kind that pander to the exact kind of boy that hiccup is.

and then his son nearly dies trying to fix his own father's mistake and it all comes crashing down on him like the sky itself has shattered and the heavens are raining down on him, coming down in thick glittering shards like glass, broken mirrors. it isn't him who saved his son's life, after all, when his entire world was engulfed in flames. it was the dragon, and somehow, stoick thinks he'll regret it the rest of his life.

hiccup is nineteen now, an adult whose heart is as pure as any child's, constantly inventing, innovating, trying to make things better, and better still.

all he can see is red, his son cowering between fragments of ice as his scaled friend turns on him, green eyes narrowed into slits, throat rumbling with the concoction of death. his mind is reeling, an endless cycle of his son falling into flames over and over again, leathery wings protecting him from a blazing death. he's running, pushing himself faster, throat burning even though he doesn't remember yelling anything and all he can focus on is getting his son out of the way of death because he cheated it once, and stoick knows from experience that death doesn't like being fooled twice.

after all, his son nearly died trying to fix his father's mistake — stoick thinks it's time that he returns the favor.

* * *

the _**( **_B_ELESPRIT **)**_ —  
one of great wit or intellect.

the first thing she learns after leaving her husband, son, &amp; village behind is how much free time she has without being weighed down by the needless responsibility of warding off beasts ten times her size, especially ones like the cuddly fellow resting beside her, its warm breath tickling her shoulder.

there is nothing _evil _about these creatures in the slightest, she realizes, stroking across the dragon's snout gently. the creature grunts softly, bulbous green eyes falling shut. _pure evil_, she thinks with a wry grin.

she wants to learn, and learn she does; not the things of vikings, though, not the practice of wielding weapons and fighting an endless war against nature and its inhabitants. she learns about _dragons_, about ones she never even knew existed, and she thinks maybe they learn about her, too. they are not creatures to be fought and slaughtered en masse; they are beautiful and intriguing and when they fly it's a kaleidoscope of color circling through the sky and valka can't recall a time she's ever felt more free and the thought makes her sad. she feels bad, because she should miss her husband and son more than she does but while she loves her son she'd felt so estranged from her husband long before she escaped from his clutches that she hardly thinks of him now.

valka has seen many things over the course of her lifetime, that number nearly doubling since she's made the decision to leave amongst the beasts, but the last thing she expected to see was her own son, having aged seventeen years since the last time she saw him. his eyes are the same, though, brimming with the same fire that resides within his father, tamed only by a sense compassion, understanding and curiosity that valka _knows _he got from her. it's strange seeing him again, like seeing the sun for the first time after being sheltered within the cool walls of this cave for years. her heart breaks, a fracture deep within her that she never knew existed until now cracking wide open and she wouldn't be surprised if her organs spilled out onto the cave floor right this moment before she has the chance to rush and embrace her son for the first time in seventeen years.

_i'll teach you everything, _she promises, heart so full she thinks it'll burst when she watches him embrace the night fury like a lost brother, fingers curling against shimmering black scales.

in that respect, she and hiccup have always been the same — she can almost picture it, their souls glittering and covered in scales, waiting to sprout wings.

* * *

the _**( **_V_IRAGO **)** _—  
one with an unpredictable, violent nature.

the words get caught in her throat every single time, dangling off the tip of her tongue, ready to fall, dance their way to the air between them and detonate before she swallows them down again, whispering — _stay in there, i'm not going to let anybody see you_.

she's not scared. astrid does not get scared, the indication of fear being a weakness pounded into her fractured skull since she was born. fear is shameful, fear is disgraceful. dishonorable. vikings do not feel fear, and if they do they shove it back, back, back until all they can feel is calloused palms sliding against rope, cool metal pressing against their skin.

fear means you're a disappointment, and in this respect astrid is the biggest failure of them all.

she's fucking _terrified_. it rocks her to her very core, like cold fingers that shove carelessly through her ribcage just to hold her stuttering heart in frozen palms. she catches sight of her reflection in the water and nearly chips a tooth with how hard she clenches her jaw. an ugly, broken, terrified ragdoll of a girl is what she is and she can journey into the darkest corners of the woods and hold herself under the dark blue waves as they crash violently over her to try and force out the fear out for as long as she wants but it doesn't work, it never works. it never stops. the world is like an hourglass, sand spilling down on her and she's going to choke if she doesn't break out of this glass.

it's too much. she is too much. she is too rough and too angry, blood on her knuckles and dirt on her knees. they quiver before her like their spines have vanished. she always winds up holding her hand in front of her face, inspecting it — she has not sprouted gills or wings, so why do they stare? eventually she learns to relish in it, wants to bathe in the glory as the blood of everybody who has ever doubted her spills from the sky.

and, like. she loves hiccup, is the thing. she loves him, she loves him, she loves him, but she's not _in love_ with him, and it's impossible to explain that she's not capable of falling in love because that's something from the books he doesn't read and stories he's too busy to listen to. it feels like she's a hurricane contained inside pale skin that's always trying to break out, spraying blood across the grass, flesh shattering away like fine china and she'll explode, a girl turned tempest, powerful &amp; all-consuming. she'd drown a thousand men in a minute, return their entire village to the sea.

it's not easy to tell somebody you're incapable of loving. it's not a conscious decision — not for astrid, anyway, whose stomach churns at the thought of it; visions of men loving her into every corner of her bedroom only serve to make her skin feel too tight. she wonders if she'll ever be small enough to fit. when he kisses her she shrinks, curling in on herself, folding over like she's trying to disappear, evaporate into nothingness, to return herself to the soil of the earth where one day she'll be reborn as a beautiful rose but she knows that with her luck she'll just come up as a weed, something to be yanked out by the roots before she infects anything else with her poison.

astrid has always been a fast girl, born with both fists up and thorns where her heart should be. they say beauty is terror. maybe they're right — moreso, perhaps it is something to be cherished rather than wished away every night as angry tears stain her sheets.

her mama has never taught her that way, never taught her to treat men like gods, to get on her knees for them, dirtying her clothes without regret in sick kind of desperation. it's when she's alone, sunlight shining on her bare back, axe in hand, that astrid feels safest, where she doesn't have to shrink herself down to fit inside her own skin. from there, it doesn't take her long to realize that _she_ is from the heavens, an angel of death, a china doll with the heart of a wolf.

* * *

the _**( **_M_YTHOMANE **)**_ —  
one with a strong propensity for fantasizing, lying, or exaggerating.

her mama calls her a dreamer when she's little. everyone else calls her second best, and her mother follows close behind them. she believes them. after all, she is second best — the black sheep of the family. she's pretty, but astrid is prettier. she's strong, but snotlout is stronger. she's brave, but hiccup is the bravest of them all. she clings on to every hope that one day she'll claim a spot as a _something_, because all she feels like is a pariah, an outcast, twigs caught in her blonde hair as she stumbles her way through woods she's never spent much time in.

it starts when ruffnut is ten. she's play-wrestling with her brother. he wins. of course he does. he always wins. she wants to go again. they do. he's going to win again — ruffnut knows this. but this time she has a plan. tuffnut pins her to the ground, voice cracking as he shrieks in victory. and ruffnut screams. not screams, but shrieks; the sound tears open the rapidly darkening sky, brewing with stormclouds, bloodcurdling and so loud the entire village goes silent. her mama comes rushing out the back door before tuffnut has even moved off of his sister, hands still covered with flour, eyes wide with concern.

"h-he _hurt _me," ruffnut wails, eyes welling with perfectly practiced tears, lower lip jutting out into a trembling pout before she utters another pained cry.

tuffnut looks more than bewildered — he looks downright _mortified_, and ruffnut revels in it. "we were only playing, ma, i swear," he blurts, eyes wide with horror, darting from his mother's stear face to his sister's tear-streaked cheeks.

he gets stuck helping papa chop wood for two weeks while ruffnut can run and play outside as she pleases. and oh, that's only the beginning.

she's fifteen and lonely and she flees to the woods behind their cottage, tripping over stones and tree roots when she stops dead, heart caught in her throat at the sight of a hulking black bear lumbering just ahead. ruffnut takes a step back. then two. a brittle twig snaps under her foot. the bear's head jerks to the side, beady black eyes taking in her skinny, shaking form.

it's not a smart idea - the pain tells her that very quickly as she scratches, cuts herself deep on jagged stones and rough tree bark, blood smeared across her arms. she clutches her face with both hands, fingers curving around her jaw, like her skin is a mask she's desperate to rip from her skull. she sees red.

she reenters the village screaming herself hoarse, clothes torn and skin covered in red that still oozes from the wounds she can only pray they believe came from the hulking brown bear's claws and not her own hand, possessed by a sick desire to be noticed, to be something bigger than what she is. now that she thinks about it, was there ever a bear in the first place? she collapses before the entire village, blood dripping down her bare legs, and when they only stare, bewildered, she wails like a banshee, _a bear!_

but the chief's son has been caught harboring a night fury. they're going after the nest, and ruffnut's petty plight goes unnoticed. her mama hands her a cloth and fills her a pail of water to clean her wounds before she heads off with the rest of them. she barely gives her daughter a second glance as she walks away, axe in hand, her form nearly swallowed whole in the crowd heading for the ships. ruffnut pukes into the bucket, weight of the situation hitting her all at once like a fist to her gut, eyes tracing over the messy wounds covering her arms, the ones that she so savagely inflicted upon herself only to pushed back in favor of something more important, more urgent.

she's eighteen now and there are two boys dueling for her affections and it should make her feel happy, special, proud, _something_, but it doesn't because her gut twists every time the nagging voice in the back of her head reminds her that they went for _astrid_ first, and she's stuck being the second best thing again, a decent alternative to the real prize. she starts to wonder if this is the universe's way of begging her to accept her fate, a lifetime of being good but not good enough. so she pushes her bony shoulders back, holds her head high, nose stuck in the air like she's a queen, something to be admired — after all, it is astrid who wears the thorny crown but ruffnut can weave flowers into her waves of blonde hair and construct a halo comprised of the cosmos.

and the all-consuming horror and dread of always being second best may fracture, but it turns everything into prisms for light to shine through.

* * *

the _**( **_C_ARCINOGENIC **)**_ —  
one who causes the end of life, whether it be their own or that of another.

he's a viking. vikings are _supposed _to kill things; it's the same words repeated over and over in his head since the moment he can comprehend the words or maybe even before that; it's certainly a funny thought, his father's fingers wagging in his face, low voice muttering, _you're going to kill a dragon, tuffnut, you're going to kill a hundred of them, that's what you were born to do_ as his baby self coos and blinks, features not yet marred by scars and ash and the scent of smoke that's woven itself into his very being, crawled under his skin and taken refuge between his ribs.

his father's words echo in his head all the time now, especially when there's blood on his hands, crimson that stains his inked skin and crawls up his arms like claws headed for his throat, the deceased coming after him even in death, seeking revenge. they haunt his dreams — he closes his eyes and their faces are their, eyeballs bulging, bloody hands covering their throats, mouths agape like they can't quite believe they're dead. the sound of bones cracking and the feel of windpipes caving in under his hand because haven't you heard? killing gets a little easier when you've done it once, the trembling, to-the-bone ache of fear gone in that split second between life and death, shaky last breaths quiet as a whisper and then nothing but silence to fill the aching void. his father told him that, too.

it's not enough. it's never enough. the blood won't wash off no matter how hard he scrubs, hands always slick with red. it gets caught under his nails, digs its way deep into his pores and stains him red like the memories imprinted into his brain that won't ever go away. it's okay.

he wants to remember. he wants them to remember, wants them to shiver at the sight of him, retreat to their homes and barricade their doors because if he can't be loved or admired he needs to be feared, needs to wreak havoc on the village and maybe someday the world if he can figure out a way to get himself off this goddamned island that's driving him mad and it's getting harder and harder to keep track of the bloodstained days that drip by like ink from the pot his father used to keep in his room. he is death incarnate, malice personified.

tuffnut wonders how long it'll take before they lock him up for good — after all, they locked up and beat and whipped the life from dragons for hundreds of years and those creatures were never the real problem, nor were they ever the real monsters; only humans can do the things he's done and still come crawling back on all fours like some kind of feral animal, mouth dripping with blood and starving for more.

* * *

the _**( **_O_NEIRATAXIAC **)**_ —  
one who cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.

head in the clouds, his mother tells him when he's ten years old, shaking her head and ruffling his hair fondly. she's his rock, and sometimes he feels like his heart might burst from how much he loves her.

the next night, fire rains from the sky and she dies screaming. there's not enough left of her for a proper burial, so they dig a hole on the spot and push her charred remains into the earth, covering her with mud wet from the rain that's pouring from the gods overhead and it reeks of smoke and ash and decay. fishlegs wonders if that smell is going to crawl up through his nostrils and make a settlement into his very being so that he'll have to deal with it for the rest of his life. the thought is terrifying, and he takes to rubbing flowers &amp; dandelions under his nose from that day onward, just to ward off the stench of death.

it's easier to get lost in himself when there's nobody around to ground him. he dreams of soaring above swollen clouds and dragons that spit fire that torches away his flesh and magic — the kind that he's only ever read about in the books his father doesn't permit and the village doesn't like. people who can turn you to ice with one touch, others who can bring an entire forest to ruins with a snap of their fingers. others can sprout wings that protrude from their backs obscenely, tearing through their flesh and bone so they can fly away into the darkening skies like angels.

he brushes the pads of his fingers along the scales of giant lizards in his dreams and again when he wakes up — and really, what's the difference? maybe he's always dreaming, or is he always awake? it's so easy to get lost, is the thing, mind cluttered with statistics and pumping with raw knowledge to the point where people are starting to look less like people and more like walking numbers, piled one atop another, sagging towards the ground with the weight of information. it's exhausting. he's starting to think he'd rather just sleep forever. other times it's easier to wish he'd never been born in the first place.

fishlegs spends his final days locked away in the comforting darkness of his room, books piled to the ceiling, candlelight flickering. the scent of impending death is almost as terrible as the stench of rot that's still locked inside his nostrils. they tell him he's imagining it. he knows he's not. she's here. he wonders if his mother will haunt him forever. he wonders what he did to deserve it. he ponders, then goes back to reading, bulging eyes glued to the pages that tell of a million fantastical creatures he can only hope are waiting for him when the time comes for him to rejoin the skies.

nobody is surprised when they find him face down in the shallow water below the docks, blood seeping out from a long-opened wound on his scalp. few attend the burial, and even fewer express any kind of sadness; it's hard to mourn one whose brain was ravaged with death long before the rest of him was.

* * *

the _**( **_A_THAZAGORAPHOBIC **)**_ —  
one who fears being forgotten or replaced.

there's nothing wrong with a little competition, or even a lot — so long as he's still first, of course. he doesn't know what exactly it is that does it; a childhood spent alone, locked away behind a wooden door that no matter how hard his mama slammed it or how much he covered his ears could not disguise the screams, the yelling - first angered, then fear, and, a bang and a whimper later, a soft cry of sadness, of regret. then for a little while it was quiet.

and it started all over again in the morning.

snotlout's childhood might not have been ideal, holed up in his room and squeezed into the darkest corner during the day and the pool of moonlight below the hole in the ceiling each night. but he's still here, is the thing. he's still alive and kicking and better than ever and he'll work the hardest and be the strongest and the fastest and get the girl and pretty soon the mark where his mama's blood stained the wall in his parents' room will be nothing but a faded memory burned into the very back of his mind, the place one's conscious wanders only in the most dark, hushed hours of the night when the world has finally gone silent and black as death.

so he pushes harder, runs faster, trains more. he can hoist boulders over his head, and in size he's only second to fishlegs — not that fishlegs has anything on him. snotlout is sure the other boy couldn't even squish a bug without being seized by guilt, so he can't let his hulking size bother him too much. after all, he's got other things to worry about. he's going to be the first. he can feel it, veins thrumming, blood pulsing just beneath his skin, like his entire being is going to explode with anticipation because _he's going to be the first to kill a dragon_, the first to plunge his axe into the scaled throat of a beast, the kind that sprays fire like his father sprays rage.

it's hard, though, when it feels like everything you've worked so hard to achieve and preserve is slipping between your fingers like grains of sand and falling into the hands over another, like hiccup has been waiting just below him all these years to snatch up his yearnings in one swoop. it's the worst he's ever felt, even worse than when the entire house rattled with the amplitude of his father's screams and his mother's cries were cut off for good. he couldn't help that. it wasn't his fault, but it was — inexplicably, as far as he can tell. this, though, this is different because it feels like something he let happen just like oh, gods, maybe it was all his fault, because he could have done something, just been a little bit better and maybe then his mama wouldn't be six feet underground and his father wouldn't be so angry all the time and it's all his fault because he can't do anything well enough no matter how hard he tries.

even in death, snotlout thinks he will always be striving for something greater, skeletal fingers reaching towards the great unknown, just out of his bony grasp.

* * *

the_ **( **_E_UNOIC **)**_ —  
one with beautiful thinking, well-minded.

he's shot from the sky, plummets to the earth like a shooting star, shrieking and crying out into the night. the ropes that bind him take away his pride, his left tail fin, and his flight. the skinny boy with the soft voice and kind eyes gives him back all three. toothless is, if to be described in a single word, adaptable. he's like a chameleon, constantly shifting, blending, thinking. it's easy to become accustomed to viking culture, to hanging from the rafters of the haddock household instead of tree branches.

it's not bad. not unwelcome, just unexpected and sometimes it feels wrong, when he goes to stretch out his wings and winds up hitting a lamp or knocking over a chair, the sound of shattering glass far too loud for his sensitive ears that flatten against his head every time somebody even speaks too loudly. but then the boy smiles at him, stroking fingers over his snout and all is well again, because here he is loved and protected in ways he wasn't before he fell from the sky. it is a debt he knows he will not be able to repay, no matter what he does because it sees like for every good thing there's a bad one. he can save the boy's life but take his father's instead, help lift him to place the final beam of wood on a home before burning it down in a fit spurred by fear.

he thinks about it, sometimes — a life of flight with no burdens on his back, no artificial tail fins or startling noises. just his face turned towards the sun, passing through clouds like a ghost. and in his loneliest moments, when the boy is asleep and the earth is still, the rumbling deep within its core finally seeming to have settled, for now, at least, toothless gazes out at the brightening sky and, with his eyes planted firmly on the rising sun, wishes for more.


End file.
